Monthly Archives: January 2014

I saw the BBC adaptation of this novel over the Christmas holidays and recently saw the book sitting on a shelf in the library so I thought I’d read it.
This is a good read and the author is sympathetic to the style of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (P&P)characters. The only exception being Colonel Fitzwilliam who is a darker character and I found it hard to reconcile him with his nicer jolly version in P&P. But then, people change over time…
Character’s in Jane Austen’s book Emma and Persuasion pop up in this book. Interestingly the author gets the timeline confused, because according to Jane Austen, Napolean was beaten before the marriage in Persuasion took place, but in this book the marriage of the Persuasion characters has already taken place before Napolean is beaten. Oops!

What a miserable marriage Elizabeth of York had! Did she really love Richard III? Did she help rescue Richard, Prince of York from going to the Tower with his brother? Did Richard IV come back and invade to reclaim the throne? All these questions are not really answered as there isn’t enough historical evidence to be sure. This book shows Margaret Baufort and her son, Henry Tudor were very insecure on the throne and constantly paranoid throughout their reign which created a hostile and uncertain atmosphere at court which in turn led to to lords defecting to Richard IV’s cause. Henry VII was unpopular in a way his childeren Henry VIII, Mary and Elizabeth were not.

Hi All,
West London Writers (part of Write Together Meet Up) still continues every Sunday afternoon whatever the weather. The concept is two hours of quiet writing on your writing project, followed by a pub social where we chat about our work and all things writing related.

It’s free to sign-up and RSVP to come along. Just buy a drink or a bite to eat as we are essentially renting a space for two hours at the coffee shop.

There are about seven viewpoint characters in this book and two/three of them are distracting to the main storyline of the brother and sister. Each chapter goes through the storyline of a viewpoint character which is an interesting structure with interesting stories that question how you judge yourself and others, but I think this novel would have been more powerful if the author stuck to just the storylines of the immediate family members.

Another bittersweet ending, similar to the last two books. This seems to be a trademark!

I am a massive fan of this author and read all his books. He has a beautiful writing style where the words flow smoothly like water. A real wordsmith.